Amboy ( ) is a city in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 535 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Mankato-North Mankato Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city was founded in 1879. It celebrated its 125th anniversary in September 2004.
History
Shelby Township was organized in 1858, the year Minnesota achieved statehood. The township's main inducement to settlement was its rich prairie loam, rendered still more attractive by the availability of wood lots along the Blue Earth River. By 1860, Shelby Township was the most populous in Blue Earth County. In addition to its 315 residents, it also sustained a small but thriving village known as Shelbyville, located in Section 35, about two miles south of modern Amboy. In the early 1860s Shelbyville hosted the county fair. The town included a hotel, church, schoolhouse, mill, two stores, a blacksmith shop, a wagon shop, and a post office. For reasons that are not completely clear, the citizens of Shelbyville declined to do so. On September 2, 1879, they voted down a proposition to give the railroad a $10,000 grant. A week earlier, however, a group of farmers residing two miles north of Shelbyville had made the railroad an offer of their own.
The farmers' proposal, which was accepted, was to buy forty acres of land for the railroad, if the railroad would lay out town lots, build a depot, and build a grain elevator. The town, named Amboy, was laid out in October 1879. This triggered the death of Shelbyville, which was deserted within three years, the buildings having been moved to other locations. Incorporating as a city in 1887, Amboy had more than 400 inhabitants by the turn of the century.
Geography
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land.
U.S. Route 169 and Minnesota State Highway 30 are two of the main routes in the community.